Updates from March, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Mark 8:03 am on March 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Rotting Food is Okay 

       Reading from John 6:27: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…
     Yesterday as with most weeks, we picked up our produce box, and upon bringing it home, we began putting the fresh produce away into the fridge.  As usual, there were one or two old, limpy-looking goods from the previous week we had to take out of the fridge to throw away.  I always get frustrated when this happens – I watch as money we’ve worked hard to earn gets put in the trash as merely rotting food.  What a waste, what futility!  What is the point of such hard work and toil!?  This passage above says that there is a food that perishes, and an eternal food.  How do I work for this better, eternal food?  How will the Son of Man give it to me?
       “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

       It is WORK to believe.  To believe is to WORK. How profound – I take this to mean that we are fighting and striving…not to reach salvation, not to win over converts and have the best apologetic argument…but to simply believe.  It is a struggle, like all work it can wear you out.  But this is the paradigm-altering, mind-bending, heart-wrenching work of belief.  The belief that there is a God.  That this God is conscious and aware of the plight of a tiny blue planet.  That this God is benevolent and infinitely interested in the welfare of the human race.  That this God attempts for thousands of years to regain an intimacy first intended and experienced between Creator and created, to only meet resistance and failure at every step.  Finally, this is the work of believing that this God sends his very self into the finite man, Jesus Christ, offering a pathway back to intimacy.

       This has ramifications for my day job by the way.  It changes how I work out my beliefs in the marketplace.  My work for eternal food affects my work for temporal food.  Now I’m not so bothered by food when it perishes, I’m not undone when I see markets tumble or housing prices collapse.  My life’s worth is no longer wrapped up in my job, and if I lose my job, I am not without identity and intimacy…I am not without belief.
       Work to believe.  Work to trust.  Seek first the Kingdom and his Righteousness, and all these things will be added to you!
    Share
     
  • Mark 9:39 am on November 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: John Eldredge   

    What Does Love…Do? 

    Walking through Chicago, you see parents interacting with their kids all the time.  Walking down sidewalks, playing at parks, on the train, pushing strollers and wearing baby-wraps.  Kids being rewarded, and being disciplined.  Parenting styles of all kinds are on full display – some styles absolutely baffle me, others make me cringe…but there are times when you see a partent engage a child in such a way that it inspires not only the kid, but all watching, to live a better life.

    Many parents love their children, but few parents know how to put that love into constructive action.  What I mean is, sometimes we think we’re loving a child when we’re actually harming her.  Love is not as simple as a kiss on the cheek or handing them 50 candy-bars a day just to appease their wishes.

    Not being a parent myself, I can not assume I would be any different than countless well-meaning parents in Chicago – and my heart goes out to folks doing the most important work in the world, raising up the next generation.  It IS the most important work…which is why this question must be asked…

    What does Love do?

    I look to the perfect picture of familial love – the Father God and his Son Jesus Christ.  Review the Gospels to find what the most beautiful, ultimate parenting skills look like in action.  Re-read the Gospels with the eyes of how God ‘parented’ Jesus, and you may find that the Love of the Father sends his Son into Mission.

    I’ve seen some parents walking down the street with their two-year-old running about 20 feet behind them, frantically trying to keep up; I’ve seen other parents let their kids shoot ahead of them unawares, running at full-speed toward busy streets, and still others keep their kids on leashes, never leaving them out of their reach (with literal leashes~ or a GPS on their teen’s cell phone)!

    Watch the Father keep his Son intimately close for years, teaching him who He is and Whose He is.  At twelve years old, Jesus has a better grip on his identity and his mission than most adult Christian leaders.  Speaking to his earthly parents, who had LOST HIM at a city-festival, found  him in the Temple, and Jesus’ pre-teenage voice, cracking as he plainly said, “Why are you looking for me?  Didn’t you know that I must be where my Father’s work is!”  Potent — both intimacy and mission wrapped into one sentence…(Lk 2:48-50)

    As Jesus’ life progressed, he was sent out as the Light of the World, doing incredible work and breaking through the hardest barrier in the Universe – the human heart.  Even still, as a Good Father, God was ever-present and affirming of his Son, attuning regularly with Jesus in times of intimate prayer and communion.

    And it is in fact, the same relationship God hopes for all those chasing after the Jesus-Way.  We have a real opportunity to be “Fathered by God” – to find our true identity, and our true purpose and mission in life.  There are enough voices vying for our hearts and our dollars in this culture – it will take focus and intentionality to be fathered by God, but its worth it – not just for your own life, but for your children’s.

    Share
     
  • Mark 9:36 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    How to Keep From Falling Apart 

     

    Things fall apart…

    This is quite possibly the best title of any book ever written.  Now, the rest of Chinua Achebe’s novel on social inequality and yams is just so-so in my opinion, but the title has always caught my attention – anytime a glass shatters falling from my cupboard, or it a flock of birds finds my freshly washed car, or I watch a faith community that began so healthy begin to pick each other apart.  Things fall apart.

    Each time it is painful to watch and it somehow reminds me of the entire Universe.  Everything about this present creation is falling apart.  The Universe is spinning farther and farther apart, our own sun is a star that is using up a limited amount of fuel and will (if the Lord tarries) burn out.  Our own bodies are failing on us the moment we begin using them, free-radicals and other nemeses plotting against us.

    So how does one fight the tide of such savage dispersion?  With every atom is warring against every other one for survival, how can we seek a future Kingdom of God that remains?

     So there is a Sabbath rest still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11 So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.

    - Heb 4:9-11

    Rest does not come naturally in a world where there is a war going on.  To keep things from falling apart in your life, your health, your faith community, and more… it takes intentionality.

    Nothing comes together outside of intentionality.

    We were created by God originally as gardeners, and this vocation provides an interesting view into the idea of intentionality.  I’ve been tending a 15×15 garden space in our urban neighborhood.  Its engendered in me a fabulous sense that “things fall apart.”  Weeds grow, plants droop and need trellises, tools scrape and sculpt the crumbling earth, pests large and small want a piece of my intentionality because they have not invested as I have into growing food.

    Some people build the sand castles, others knock them over.  The writer of Ecclesiastes knew this well (Eccl 3:3) “There is a time to break down, and a time to build up.”  As I’ve stated, the destructive forces of the Universe are always breaking you down, and your job as one of God’s gardeners is to always intentionally be building up.  

    Put yourself in an environment that spurs you on toward a more spiritually-formed life.  If you want to pray, create a space for that prayer to happen, or it never will.  If you want to be a peacemaker, put yourself in situations where you have to practice peace.  This won’t often “just happen.”  And when it does, unless you’ve intentionally prepared, you’ll fail the test – simply because you were not intentional!

    Its not hard, but the hardest part is getting started.

    In God’s Kingdom, Things Come Together.

    Share
     
    • Tunesntoons 4:00 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink

      Except, sometimes it IS hard. BUT it’s not as hard as you think :)

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
esc
cancel